Super Mario Bros 3 [NES – Beta / Concept / Unused]

Super Mario Bros 3 [NES – Beta / Concept / Unused]

There were going to be two new enemies called Gold Cheep Cheep (a golden version of a Cheep-Cheep), and Green Parabeetles (green colored Parabeetles). The Gold Cheep Cheeps would come in groups and swim faster than regular Cheep-Cheeps and the Green Parabeetle is a green Parabeetle that flies faster than normal ones. The game coding reveals an item-sized Toad icon among some of the game’s suits; this is interpreted by several as a sort of “Toad Suit”, although it makes no changes to gameplay when granted to Mario. This is likely due to it being scrapped early and never given any purpose. Designers also considered a power-up to turn Mario into a Centaur (half-man, half-horse), although this was rejected (Tilden 1990, 21).

Koopa Troopas and and Hammer Bros. were going to host the mini-games. They were replaced by Toad. However, it could also be possible that they were all around at the same time, but all got scrapped except for one due to memory size. There were also different kinds of mini-games, similar to the ones in New Super Mario Bros..

Finally, fifteen extra levels exist within the coding of Super Mario Bros. 3. Some of these are strange and unique, while others bear much resemblance to levels in the final version and were very likely redone as those. Also, the back of the box of some copies of Super Mario Bros. 3 depicts Mario traversing a hilly grassland stage with tons of Parabeetles and two Note Blocks about. This particular stage is not any of the lost ones present on the cartridge, nor is it in the final game. It could even be a press mock-up from Nintendo. Reports say it might be in the Japanese version either hidden ingame or in code, but there is no proof of it’s existance on the American Version. The “special” boxes also feature a beta map of Grass Land. [Info from Mariowiki]

In december 2008, Linkin800 found some unused sprites in the game code and posted them in the Mushroom Kingdom Forum:

I found some unused Mario overworld sprites.

It seems like Nintendo was originaly going to have it so that mario could walk in all derictions instead of just facing the screen all the time.

some beta buildings I found. (palletes could be wrong): the first one looks like some kind of wooden toy block fortress thing, the second im not sure what it is and the last one looks like a factory to me, or it could be a beta fortress, the thing underneath the 3rd building is it crushed after you beat the level.

I also found something small but intresting. (palletes are also wrong) its the mario that appears in mini games, but there are 2 bodys found in the game, one is fatter then the other, the fat body is used in the game but the skinny one isn’t, I think originaly Nintendo was going to make a diffrent sprite for luigi but never did, not sure.

Thanks to Linkin800, Keith Sass, Inferno and Luiszena for some of these images!

Images:

Videos:

This Famimaga video shows the various differences of this early version to the final that the annotations go over. For one, none of the levels are recognizable (except perhaps one particular part), and the HUD is different.

What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!

(5 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)

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Since 2001 Unseen64 archive beta and cancelled videogames, till the 7th generation of consoles. There are too many unseen games to preserve, but many people help us with their contributions, screens, videos and descriptions. Do you want to help too?

I tried to contact Luiszena from that Flickr account, to ask him to scan those pages so that we could have better screens, he said that he would have scanned them, but then he probably has forgot to, because i never got those scans :( maybe i’ll try again, but i dont want to bother people too much :P Anyway, i’m going to add these photos to the MB3 gallery, thank you Keith! You are the one that sent me an email with those some time ago, right?

The Toad item might not even be a suit, but maybe a key of some sort to use the mushroom house, notice how there are no sprites of Mario actually in the suit. Maybe it also served as a blue mushroom house, on the map screen.

The “Toad” sprite is indeed the Hammer Bros. Suit, but it’s the one that pops out of the giant ? block in World 7-8 (as opposed to the one that appears in the item list on the map screen). Check 2:57-3:01 of this video for proof:

Flying Omelette, when it comes to older games, hacking can always be the answer to why certain beta things function the way they do. < : The suit has been apparently tried before and does absolutely nothing, meaning the coding for the suit probably no longer exists.

I find it hard to believe that the Toad Suit's original function would be to throw hammers, as it makes little to no sense at all…

I believe that the new Super Mario All Stars booklet for the wii has some papers inside the collectable box that says the game was once going to have a jet pack and space shoes (info from IGN.com). I’ll try to get you guys more information once I buy the game! :D

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